I went to see Pearl Harbor because I “had” to. I’m a pilot, see? Even as a two-year-old I knew I would fly. I eat, sleep, drink, talk, watch, love and live aircraft. I was expecting to be as disappointed in Pearl Harbor as I was with Menmpis Belle. (Utter crap. The only similarity between that movie and the real B-17 was that there were B-17s in WWII and one of them was called Memphis Belle. If you want to see a good movie about it, filled with action and drama, see the WWII documentary of the same name.)
And yet, Pearl Harbor wasn’t that bad. It didn’t have much to do with Pearl Harbor – that is, the story could’ve taken place just about anywhere – but it held my interest. (For a much better movie about Pearl Harbor, rent or buy Tora! Tora! Tora!.) The love story was resolved exactly as I predicted. The computer generated aircraft looked like computer-generated aircraft. In Tora! Tora! Tora! they used real aircraft and guess what? They looked like real aircraft. (S/FX people have got to learn a little about aerodynamics, aeronautics and the way things are supposed to look before taking on this sort of thing.) Yamamoto’s famous (if he really said it) line, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” was cropped to “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant.” No one said, “Climb Mt. Niitaka.” I think the pilot’s wings are supposed to have the lower edge on the top of the pocket flap, or to be 1/2" above it; not centred on it. I could be wrong there. The attack itself was just carnage with no context. Could’ve been done better.
Still, I don’t think it sucked. It was cool seeing the Spitfires (my favourite WWII aircraft) fly in the Battle of Britain scenes, and I’m glad they used real Messerschmidts (actually, Hispano-Suisas – but close enough). In spite of my comments about the aerial CGI sequences, the S/FX were generally pretty good overall.
There are two things that are glaring. The first is that they tend to put way too many aircraft in much too small a space. Yes, large-scale air battles are crowded; but filmmakers tend to put too many aircraft too close together. The other thing is altitude. Airplanes look faster when they are close to something; but you would never see dogfights 20 feet off the deck. I suppose it could happen, and may even have happened a couple of times. But look at the kamikazi footage from WWII. These guys were trying to run into the ships, but they were not as low as the S/FX planes in the movie. In the film, aircraft were flying between ships at deck level. A gunner shooting at the plane would have been shooting directly at the other ship. Looked fake. Also, these pilots intended to come home. There are a lot of cables and other things that are just waiting to reach out and snag a low-flying aircraft. Remember too that the Japanese bombers were, IRL, flying at about 10,000 feet. The torpedo bombers had to go low, but the gravity-bombers and air cover were higher.
So if you’re going to do a S/FX air battle, remember to leave some space between the planes and to give them a bit of altitude.
I’ll second you Johnny. If they had changed the name and the tailer I feel people would look at it a little more kindly. Although the context of Pearl Harbor is what made me most dissapointed. Not a single word about blackouts, rationing of goods. I felt the second level stories could have been worked in better. It was worth the $4.75 I paid to see it. Although I am an extremely generous movie viewer. They really have to screw up before I start complaining.
I thought the movie was terrible when I saw it. I was expecting it to be about Pearl Harbor and not a love story. When it was about Pearl Harbor I felt that they just kinda crammed it in there. I especially liked how the 2 main characters were at one time fighting the Japanese, then immediately they were in the hospital, and then immediately on one of the sinking ships trying to get sailors out. Those boys were really quick. But the best part had to be all of the english writing that was on the Japanese ships. It sure was nice of the Japanese to bring a calendar with English writing on it so that we would know it was December 7th.
I didn’t expect a documentary, and so I guess I enjoyed this film more than the critics.
And I’m with Johnny, those shots of planes flying between ships make no sense at all. It made me think that Han Solo was about to come zooming out of the sun to save somebody.
And I thought the P-40s talking to the guy with a walkie-talkie was really streching it.
While we’re at it, did the Japanese use dive bombers during the attack? With the level-bombers dropping, and the torpedo planes, a few dive bombers would really mix up the air traffic!
kelley: I think the Japanese did use dive bombers. To add a little more fun to the mix, there is evidence that a single midget submarine made it into the harbour and hit a ship with one or two torpedos. I saw a National Geographic program on teevee last night that showed what could be the submarine and other evidence in the water in a photo taken by a Japanese pilot during the attack.
Johnny L.A.:
The Japanese did, indeed, use dive bombers. In the first wave, there were about 51 of them (along with 49 high-level bombers, 40 torpedo bombers [actually, the same planes as the high-level bombers, just carrying torpedoes instead of bombs] and 43 “Zeroes”).
I haven’t seen the movie myself, and I don’t know if I will (personally, I don’t think Bay/Bruckheimer can do the story the justice it deserves). I am curious, however, between which ships the planes in the movie were supposed to be zipping around at deck-level? They couldn’t have been the battleships themselves (or, I should say, they shouldn’t have been), since the only BB pairings in the harbor were the Maryland and Oklahoma and the Tennessee and West Virginia, and I would venture to say that they were moored too close together for a plane to fly between. Other cruisers and support ships were too far from the BBs (and each other) for this to have been a realistic scene. Unless, I suppose this was during the Nevada’s attempted breakout…
And yes, I know it’s only a movie, and such scenes are supposed to be “exciting” and all, but, heck, historical accuracy can be just as exciting as gimmicky cinematography!
p.s. There were actually 6 of the midget submarines in the battle - one was sunk about an hour and a half before the actual attack - the rest were sunk during the attack, including one which the destroyer Monaghan rammed at flank speed and followed up with a volley of depth charges.
I thought there were only five midget subs. One had a gyro problem and got lost, later to wash ashore with one of its crew (who became our first POW). One seems to have possibly made it into the harbor and seems to have possibly hit a ship with torpedoes, and the other were never heard from again after launching.
But submarine warfare is not my area of interest, so I haven’t studied midget subs at all.
You are correct - there were only 5. The launch of one was delayed by about 3 hours as a result of the faulty gyrocompass (and, as you said, it was later found beached outside the entrance to the harbor). The one sunk by the Monaghan was buried in a landfill, and another was later found outside the harbor in 1960. The other two remain unaccounted for. It is not known if the Monaghan’s sub was the same which might have launched torpedoes at the West Virginia and/or the Oklahoma. According to eyewitnesses from the Monaghan, the sub fired a torpedo at the approaching destroyer, which missed, before it was rammed. If a sub did, in fact, fire at the battleships, as recent evidence suggests, then it would seem that at least two subs made it into the harbor.
Darwin, I’m not going to post a guess as to which ships were being flown between in the movie (it had nothing to do with the Nevada however), but I can distinctly remember seeing an AA gun that was practically sweeping the deck of the adjacent ship while tracking the Japanese plane.
Even this old hunter was thinking “be aware of your target and beyond”
Well I will venture a guess here. I am pretty sure that the Japanese planes were flying between all kinds of ships. I would say the movie pretty much screwed up there. However, when Dorie Miller (played by Cuba Gooding Jr.) was firing the machine gun from the West Virginia, the Japanese were flying in between the ships. I wondering if that really happened then why he wasn’t shooting the ship next to him.
Yeah, I was kinda confused about the midget subs. IIRC, there was a line in the movie about them sinking a Japanese sub near PH, but then they never mentioned them again, or showed them at all.
Hey, I liked it too… for me I guess it’s a matter of expectations, really. I knew it was a Bruckheimer movie, therefore I expected action and predictable Hollywood schmaltz to take precedence over reality. However, I have to admit I was a little upset about how the three principle heroes were apparently responsible half the Japanese planes destroyed.
My only real problem is that I happened to be thirsty on the way in and thought I’d do my bit of supporting the local theater owner for once by buying a pop. Unfortunately I went brain-dead and forgot what happened the last time I had a huge canister of carbonated beverage before Phantom Menace… and this movie was a solid three hours. I managed to hold out for the last half hour under extreme pressure from enemy naval forces.
